Sierra Gorda Part. 11: Tilaco's mission church interior and its cloister

The apse and main altar inside Tilaco's church . The inside of the church is relatively spartan compared to the exuberant facade on its front, seen in Part 10. Mission of San Francisco de Asis del Valle de Tilaco is named after St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan Order whose statue is in the niche above the crucifix. Blue drapes are painted around the niche on three sides. Painted wall decorations are a practice dating back to the earliest days of New World missions. The statues to the right and left of St Francis are unidentified but may be the Virgin Mary's parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne.

In this posting I'll show you some of the Tilaco mission church's interior and also the cloister where the friars lived and worked. In addition, I'll outline the development of the mission system and tell you about the typical daily activities. My information on these activities comes from descriptions of a mission in colonial New Mexico. However, these  are applicable to the Sierra Gorda missions because, throughout the colonial period, Franciscan friars followed the same set of long-established rules, and faced very similar problems. 

Ceiling of the dome over the transept.  What appears to be a star-burst is actually a large candelabra viewed from directly below. Notice the four triangular spaces formed where the arches supporting the dome come together. In most of the colonial churches I have visited, these spaces are filled with images of important saints or biblical scenes. In this case they are not, possibly because the original paintings had deteriorated and were painted over.

Evangelization was the core function and driving force of the Franciscans in the New World from the earliest days of the Conquest. They came in 1524  at the specific request of Hernán Cortéz  and were the first of the evangelizing Orders to arrive. The Franciscans were committed to a spartan lifestyle and gravitated to the more remote areas like the Sierra Gorda. While individual Franciscan friars were of the firm belief that they had come to save souls from devil worship and eternal damnation, the Spanish civil authorities saw them as a key instrument for establishing control over the native populations.

Cortéz himself understood that, while he could militarily defeat native warriors, he simply couldn't control the conquered populations at the point of a gun. This required the Spiritual Conquest, a "hearts and minds" strategy based on eradicating native religious beliefs and replacing them with Spanish-style Christianity. By extension, this also meant the imposition of Spanish culture and authority. Highly structured civilizations like the Aztecs could be controlled by replacing one hierarchical, top-down structure with another. However, dispersed and nomadic populations like the Chichimeca presented different problems.

Octagonal windows are set high on the walls of the nave. They are the primary source of light for the inside of the church. The painted decorations around the window and along the wall above imitate carved woodwork. Like the painted drapes above the St. Francis niche in the apse, they hark back to much earlier times. One possible reason for this sort of decoration is that actual drapes and elaborate woodwork would have been more expensive and would have required more maintenance.

The Sierra Gorda had once been dominated by the Huastecs, who had populated the city of Tancama (see Parts 4-8), near Jalpan de Serra. However, that city had been abandoned around 950 AD and Chichimeca tribes like the Jonaz and Pames had subsequently moved into the area. The Jonaz were warlike nomads, while the Pames tended to settle in small widely dispersed villages and were somewhat (but not always) more peaceable. From the 16th century through the middle of the 18th, the Augustinian Order dominated evangelization in the Sierra Gorda, focusing their efforts primarily on the Pames.

The Augustinian solution to the dispersal problem was to persuade the native people to congregate around the missions. "The expectation was that once congregated and taught agriculture under the administration of the missionaries, the Chichimecas would embrace the new faith and their status in the new colonial order."* However, the Augustinians devoted inadequate resources to the effort and the Pames clung to their far-flung villages and their beliefs. Such missions as were established were raided by the Jonaz, who burned them and killed the friars. The Pames also periodically revolted against Spanish seizures of their lands.

*  The Chicimeca Frontier and the Evangelization of the Sierra Gorda 1550-1770.

A niche in the nave wall contains a statue of San Isidro Labrador. St. Isidore the Farmer (1070-1130) is the patron saint of farmers and of Madrid, his place of birth. He was born to poor but devout parents who named him after St. Isidore of Seville. Isidore spent his life working on a rich man's farm and was very generous to the poor, sometimes sharing the food he carried with him or bringing groups of them home for supper. Isidore was very pious and was associated with numerous miracles. He was canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622, almost 500 years after his death.

The Augustinians never really managed to establish on-going missions among the Sierra Gorda's native people. Finally, in 1735, a Spanish soldier/administrator named Capitán José Escandon decisively defeated the Jonaz at the Battle of Media Luna. He surveyed the overall situation and concluded that the Augustinians had failed their fundamental task, which was to pacify and settle the Jonaz and the Pames. Accordingly, Escandón looked for someone else to do the job. In 1739, he settled on the Franciscans. 

Captain Escandón  gave the Franciscans the Augustinian mission in Jalpa and their two visitas (outposts) at Tancoyol and Concá. He further ordered the Franciscans to establish missions at Landa and Tilaco. A decade later, when Junipero Serra arrived, things began to take off. Serra and his Franciscans settled the Pames around their missions using what was essentially bribery. In 1758, Tilaco's friar reported that "In order to have them quiet and to keep them from wandering on the pretext of having to look for food, they are given daily sufficient corn and frijol (beans) from the communal stores, and on some days meat."  

Painting of Our Lady of Sorrows of Soriano. This version of the Virgin is the patron saint of the Diocese of Querétaro . Her name means "Our Lady of the Sorrows." Soriano is a neighborhood in the city of Querétaro which contains the Basilica de Soriano . A basilica is a church to which pilgrimages are made and the one in Soriano receives over 2 million pilgrims each year. The Seven Sorrows of Mary refers to various events during the life of Jesus, including his crucifixion.

After Junipero Serra arrived, he found that native lands had been usurped by Spanish settlers, as well as some of those belonging to the missions themselves. He successfully lobbied the authorities to force their return, building up a good deal of respect and support among the  Pames. He also deliberately incorporated plants and animals native to the Sierra Gorda in his elaborate church facades, knowing that many of these details contained deep pre-hispanic religious meanings. Along with bribery these tactics helped the friars create their mission communities.  However, the natives were susceptible to European diseases for which they had no natural resistance and larger communal settings resulted in epidemics. 

For example, four of the missions, including Tilaco, lost a total of 422 natives and 3 missionaries in the 1746-47 outbreak. The smallpox epidemic of 1762 at Tilaco killed 200 Pames out of a mission community of 935. In addition, low birth rates among the Christianized Pames forced the friars to incorporate non-Christian natives into their mission communities, just to maintain food production. An increase in the number of Spanish and mestizos from outside the Sierra Gorda increased the pressure on land and resources. These were among the reasons why the Franciscans finally departed. They turned over their missions to the secular priesthood in 1770 and headed to Baja and Alta California to save souls there. 

San Toribio Romo González stands with flags containing messages left by visitors. Some of the messages include requests for the saint's help while others contain thank you notes from those whose requests came true. San Toribio (1900-1928) was martyred during the Cristero War between the new revolutionary government and Catholic reactionaries. He is venerated for his miraculous appearances, beginning in the 1970s, to illegal migrants during their dangerous journeys across the US border. Ironically, San Toribio was opposed to such migrations, fearing that the people would lose their Catholic values in the US.

Cloister

The entrance to the cloister is to the right of the church . We were fortunate to be able to go inside and explore. I expected to encounter someone such as a priest, caretaker or at least a member of the congregation, but there was no one about. Two covered picnic tables stand invitingly at either side of the entrance. Not all churches have cloisters, just the ones that are current or former missions. This is the area where the frailes (friars) of the Franciscan Order and their various assistants lived and worked. So, what was it like to live at one of these missions?

In 1626, a fraile named Alonso de Benevides arrived at a Franciscan mission in New Mexico. He wrote a Memorial to the Pope and the Spanish King in 1630 about daily life there. Benevides' experiences were typical of colonial-era Franciscan missions and closely mirror what happened in the Sierra Gorda, including at Tilaco. He spoke of the land as "very remote and isolated" requiring long journeys to get there. There were only a few friars and "most of the convents have only one." The friars were supported by 20 or so native assistants who took turns "as porters, sextons, cooks, bell ringers, gardeners, refectioners and other tasks."  

An ancient hallway leads to a weathered wooden door. I was immediately attracted to the antiquity of this hall, with its worn tile floor, bare wooden ceiling, rough plaster walls, and the old door leading to some mysterious space within the complex. 

The friars established "schools for the teaching of praying, singing, playing musical instruments, and other interesting things. Promptly at dawn, one of the Indian singers, whose turn it is that week, goes to ring the bell" in order to get the others "to assemble and sweep the rooms thoroughly. The singers chant the Prime in the choir. The friar must be present at all of this and take note of those who have failed to perform this duty, in order to reprimand them later. When everything is neat and clean, they again ring the bell and each one goes off to learn his particular specialty...the friar oversees it all..." 

A small chapel is contained within the cloister.  This was probably used for some religious functions, such as the religious instruction that was an integral part of the evangelist's role. However, it may also have served as the meeting place where the friars and their assistants could deliberate on problems the mission was facing. Notice the painted imitations of bricks around the window, another example of using paint to imitate decorative stone or woodwork.

Benevides' Memorial describes giving instructions to Indians who plan to get married and about taking the confessions of both sick or healthy persons (epidemics occurred in Franciscan missions nearly everywhere). After marital instructions and confessions, "all go to church and the friar says mass and administers the sacraments. Mass over, they gather in different groups, examine the lists, and take note of those who are absent in order to reprimand them later". The friar then dismisses his native assistants but "warns them first of the circumstances with which they should go about their daily business."

An open arcade spans one side of the cloister's courtyard. It would have been a cool place to sit on a hot day while chatting with others or during solitary contemplations. The arcade also provided some shelter from the seasonal rains. The arches supported by columns are called portales.

The Memorial continues: "At meal time, the poor people in the town who are not ill come to the porter's lodge, where the cooks of the convent have sufficient food ready, which is served to them by the friars. Food for the sick is sent to their homes. After mealtime, it always happens that the friar has to go to some neighboring people to hear confession or to see if they are careless in the boys' school, where they learn to pray and assist at mass, for this is the responsibility of the sextons..."

Carole walks toward the well that stands in the middle of the courtyard. This was a convenient site for a well, accessible to all parts of the cloister. The arcade seen in the previous photo is to the left. The three-tiered steeple I showed in Part 10 looms over the courtyard.

The Memorial describes a food strategy similar to that used by the Franciscans 120 years later in the Sierra Gorda. "For the support of all the poor of the pueblo, the friar makes them sow some grain and raise some cattle, because if he left it to their discretion, they would not do anything. Therefore, the friar requires them to do so and trains them so well that...he feeds all the poor and pays the various workmen who come to build the churches. With the wool, he clothes all the poor, and the friar himself also gets his clothing and food from this source. All the wheels of this clock must be kept in good order by the friar, without neglecting any detail, otherwise all would be totally lost."

A dark doorway leads down into the cloister's interior . The tree appears to be some species of cedar. Given its size, it was probably planted long after the Franciscans turned over the property to the secular priests in 1770.

The role of the mission's friars occasionally resembled that of a civil official. "One of the greatest tasks of the friars is to adjust the disputes of the Indians among themselves, for since they look upon him as a father, they come to him with all their troubles, and he has to take pains to harmonize them. If it is a question of land and property, he must go with them and mark their boundaries and thus pacify them."

A small garden occupies one corner of the cloister's courtyard. During the last half of the 18th century, when the mission was used by the Franciscan Order, such a garden might have served to raise herbs and vegetables for the refectory, or dining hall, attached to the cloister. 

The Memorial ends rather poignantly. "The most important thing is the good example set by the friars. This, aside from the obligations of their vows, is forced upon them because they live in a province where they concern themselves with nothing but God. Death stares them in the face everyday! Today one of their companions is martyred, tomorrow, another, their hope is that such a good fortune may befall them while living a perfect life."

This concludes Part 11 of my Sierra Gorda series. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments, please remember to include your email address so that I may respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim